


moonlight motel

by janie_tangerine



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: (EVEN IF I'M LATE AF), (very mild but still, Alternate Universe - Actors, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst and Feels, Bittersweet, Bruce Springsteen References, F/M, Flashbacks, Hopeful Ending, Jaime Lannister Needs a Hug, Jaime/Brienne Appreciation Week, Masturbation, Mild Sexual Content, Tumblr Prompt, based on a bruce song as if anyone is surprised, jaime sad hours but they get better, sort of based on a western stars as jb recast au concept but lkdgljsd
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-08
Updated: 2020-10-08
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:14:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26894284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/janie_tangerine/pseuds/janie_tangerine
Summary: His phone has been dead for a week. He doesn’t have enough money to buy another, and she knows.I’ll see you at the station, she had said before she saw him off the morning he drove to Arizona, her mouth pressed against his just before he jumped on the car and drove off feeling like he could throw up.But what if she doesn’t?A small voice in his head that sounds like his sister tells him as he looks at the damned empty pool in the moonlight.She’s not Cersei, another voice that sounds more like his answers. When has she ever been?
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Comments: 12
Kudos: 88
Collections: Jaime x Brienne Week 2020





	moonlight motel

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jencat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jencat/gifts).



> ... HELLO EVERYONE SO, I had this planned for jbweek and I'M FUCKING LATE AS HELL because during the actual week I had rl obligations and couldn't edit/post anything so get this and a couple other late entries as I just managed to do three fics rather than seven this year T_T still IT'S SOMETHING RIGHT?
> 
> anyway, this specific one was written based on a prompt for tumblr user it-may-be-dull-but-im-determined who asked for a fic based of bruce springsteen's _moonlight motel_ which in turn I wrote based partly on a whole concept we had come up with last year where we turned the entire western stars record into a possible jb fanfic so I might add to this at some point but here you go, it was originally for day three's prompt _patience_ for jbweek but it went how it went X°D the title is obviously from the source material, I own zilch and HEY I HOPE YOU ENJOY THE LATE OFFERING TT *saunters back downwards to publish the rest*

Jaime doesn’t know _why_ what he can’t stand about this place is that the cracks in the pool outside his room are crawling with dandelions.

It should be — inconsequential.

It’s a dump in the middle of the highway heading to Tucson right in the middle of the Utah desert. It’s a miracle that the rooms are clean and not crawling with spiders. Then again, the fact that it has a pool maybe means it used to be a classy place once.

Once.

Now he’s paid thirty per night to stay here three nights, and he doesn’t even know _why_ because he could have been off to Tucson already, but.

_But_.

He looks at his phone, remembering at the last second that the screen is dark because it's broken and he couldn't replace it yet, so he can't check the date, but... he doesn't really need to.

A week left.

He didn’t even have to pass through _here_.

He could have just gone straight from Denver, no need for the detour, but.

_I don’t really — I don’t feel like leaving here. But it’s good money_ , he had told Brienne a week ago.

_I know_ , she had said, and she had been half-smiling as they laid in her bed, in a room much nicer than this one. _Well, the rent on this apartment isn’t that great and I don’t have anything lined up after this shoot_.

He had looked at her, feeling his eyes going wide as he stared into her blue ones.

_You mean, you would —_ he had blurted.

_I never lived in Arizona,_ she had shrugged. _Why not_?

He hadn’t — he hadn’t known what to do with the fact that she had been willing to drop everything and go with him after just six months of knowing each other _for real_ after a couple years of drifting off from set to set.

But.

But she _had_ , hadn’t she, and she had felt so warm against him as she kissed him after, said she could take a train after wrapping the movie if she didn’t break a leg, and it’s going to be a week and three days from now and he’s supposed to be in Tucson seven days from now because they called him for that tv show he auditioned for a while ago even if he was sure no one would have picked _him_ just because of — well.

Your career doesn’t usually recover from killing your former mentor and co-star who made your life hell with a gun that was supposed to be loaded with blanks and wasn’t instead — it turned out that Aerys had switched them himself because he wanted to end it, but… no one wants to hire someone with such a bad fame. Which is how he ended up doing stunts after his entire family but Tyrion left him to fend for himself. Which is how he met Brienne.

Because of course they only hire her for _stunts_. Too bad. She’d be a good actress, she thinks.

Anyway.

The series got a pick up for a whole season. It shoots in Tucson. It’s _indeed_ good money. He could probably find her stunts to do on set if she’s all right with it. If it gets picked for a second season, maybe he would stop being almost constantly broke.

And yet.

Yet, he thinks he’s deathly afraid of going up to the station and finding out she _hadn’t_ taken that train she said she would.

His phone has been dead for a week. He doesn’t have enough money to buy another, and she knows.

_I’ll see you at the station_ , she had said before she saw him off the morning he drove to Arizona, her mouth pressed against his just before he jumped on the car and drove off feeling like he could throw up.

_But what if she doesn’t_? A small voice in his head that sounds like his sister tells him as he looks at the damned empty pool in the moonlight.

_She’s not Cersei_ , another voice that sounds more like his answers. _When has she ever been?_

Never, he knows that.

Fuck, he _knows_ that.

He _would_ , when Cersei said that _maybe_ she’d meet him to _talk_ about the two of them after it was obvious he couldn’t keep on living in LA when no one was hiring him anymore, and then she never showed up — he waited for her for two days at a five-star hotel he already could barely afford, and then —

Then he found out she got engaged to Robert Baratheon from newspapers.

He hated that he hadn’t felt surprised, back in the day.

Brienne wouldn’t, he knows she wouldn’t —

_But what if she realizes that it’s not a good bet and that I’m not worth it_ , that damned voice whispers again.

Fuck.

He gets up and leaves the bed, trying to not look at the dandelion-filled pool, which maybe is irking him so because the one at his father's goddamned mansion was always perfectly polished, and goes for the mini-fridge in the corner. Just being turned on makes it buzz hard enough he could hear it from the other side of the room.

There _is_ a bottle of whiskey inside. Fuck it, he can afford _that_ , given the rates. He takes a swig, then goes back to bed and turns his back to the window, trying to not think about the flowers rising through those cracks and the cars parked near his on the other side of the parking lot.

The bed is all cherry wood, flowers carved into the post — this place really must have been fancy, once upon a time.

_Like you_ , that voice whispers to him as he closes his eyes and tries to sleep.

— —

_Brienne, I wish I never — I wish I never, you know. I always told myself it was better to have loved than not, but if she didn’t want me back, not for_ me _, then maybe it wasn’t._

_I understand. I thought it was better not to than… than do it and for it to end badly. But — but I don’t think this is what’s going on here, you know_.

_You don’t?_

_I don’t. I do have a good feeling. For once. First time, maybe._

_Do you?_

_Should I show you?_

He opens his eyes at once, the image of Brienne moving on top of him after that, her mouth finding his, her hands grasping his hips, just after she said that three months ago, the — it wasn’t the first time they had fucked, not really, but it was the first after he actually told her about Cersei, and after that he just felt like he had no idea what he was doing and being with _her_ just had felt so different, he couldn’t —

He couldn’t quite put the picture together. She had shown him, hadn’t she, and then — then —

He curses under his breath, his hand reaching down under the loose trousers he put on to sleep in, fingers wrapping around his half-hard dick to get himself off as he thinks of how she had pressed him down against the mattress, how she had ridden him to exhaustion, her thighs trembling against his frame and her fingers curling around his hair, and it’s probably not saying much about his stamina that he doesn’t really last that long, the memory of her scent and strength and pretty blue eyes staring down into his as he was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen pushing him over the edge and spilling all over the clean but worn out sheets.

He breathes, and the first instinct is grabbing his phone and text her, tell her _I dreamed of you_ , and then he remembers it’s busted.

_Fuck_.

He stands up, goes to the bathroom, cleans himself up and grabs the whiskey again before walking out in the parking lot, grabbing a paper cup from the top of the fridge on his way out, not even bothering to lock the door. It’s not like anyone would have anything to steal, _if_ anyone was so desperate to steal things here.

He pours a drink in the goddamned paper cup.

_To not fucking that job up_ , he thinks, and drinks it.

He pours another, closes his eyes.

_Please be fucking there,_ he thinks, thinking of Brienne’s pretty blue eyes and her large shoulders and her rough hands and her legs wrapping around him as she leaned down and told him that she _would_ be at the station right on time and he’d just have to hold on those couple weeks and then they could really think about starting things anew together for real.

It’s so strange, he thinks, that he was never known for being particularly patient except when it came to Cersei, and then he just… stopped expecting anything, and now having been far away from Brienne a week is making his stomach turn all over in all the bad ways, and he has another one and a few days left before he sees her again and he knows he should just — _make peace with it_ and hold on until then, he’s being ridiculous about this, and yet —

And yet he hates that he has to wait that long and that his damned phone is dead.

He drinks another shot, remembering he told Brienne that he’d take a long turn and maybe pass by this road just before he left.

She said no one would blame him for driving around a while and that he also deserved a break.

He goes back into his room, finds a pad with the hotel’s name on it — _Moonlight Motel_ , how imaginative —, and scribbles down on it with his left hand, he hasn’t been that great at it with the right since he injured it during the damned stunt that actually made them _talk_ for real after she had to drag him to the ER because no one on set would.

He scribbles down on it, then folds it in two, writes Brienne’s address on it and gets back out, looking for the kid manning the entrance.

“Can I ask you a favor?” He asks.

The kid raises his eyes from the old paperback he’s reading. His uniform is worn-out. Fuck, he’s actually _wearing a uniform_.

“Sure,” he says.

“You mind sending this to the address I wrote on the back?”

He slips the kid a five.

“That’d cover it,” he says. “Cheers.”

“Cheers,” Jaime says, and then slips him another ten to pay for the whiskey.

He should go back to his room, but instead he just heads for the pool, sitting on the side of it, feeling the flowers under his naked feet through the cracks in it.

He takes another swig of whiskey, looking up at the sky.

He doesn’t remember ever seeing it so clearly in LA or in Denver or… anywhere else really.

_Just be patient another damned week_ , he tells himself. _Just stop this._

_You know she’ll come and you can start again. You know she will_.

He takes another drink, then pours the rest of the whiskey into the pool, watching it trickle down along the cracks in the concrete.

Maybe he’ll feel better when the sun comes up.

Maybe as he drives over tomorrow he’ll just feel ridiculous for having even spiraled like _this_ when he has no reason to.

Maybe he will.

He stands up, goes back into the room, pulls the curtains and crawls back into the bed, throwing the covers over his face, wishing she was here and not in Denver wrapping things up and packing her bags.

Tomorrow he’ll drive out and he’ll try to count down the days instead of just wondering if he’ll be alone at the station when her train arrives.

_Tomorrow_.

Tonight, he closes his eyes and dreams of her eyes again as she tells him that good things come to those who wait the night before he left before kissing him into the mattress and smiling down at him like _he_ was the one good thing that came to her as she waited.

When he meets her again, he’ll tell her that _she_ was his one good thing and that waiting for her was worth it all along.

End.


End file.
